Traitor Savant (Second Seal of the Duelists)

by Giacomo, Jasmine

  Bayan felt his jaw muscles bunch with frustration. “Does that mean you can’t ask anyone for help with the spell?”

  “I’m afraid so. I’m sorry. I did learn some more information from the head duelist at Aleida’s duel den, but… ”

  “You talked to him? What did he say?”

  “The head duelist is a woman. She told me that she received notice that Aleida had been reassigned, that she wouldn’t be joining the den after all. She couldn’t tell me where the reassignment was, though. I’m sorry. I know that makes things muddier.”

  “Mud, I can handle.” Bayan lifted a corner of his mouth in a relieved smile. Aleida wasn’t dead or lost, unless he counted being lost in the duelism system. The darkness Tala had seen still bothered him, but if he could find out where Aleida had been reassigned, he hoped to find a simple explanation. An idea jumped out at him. “Tala, are there any duel dens at or near the Temple outposts?”

  The girl frowned. “I don’t know where all the outposts are. But that might explain the darkness—a magical interference. I’ll see what I can learn. I’m so sorry to be bringing you all this bad news and uncertainty.”

  “Don’t feel sorry. I asked you to help. It’s not your fault at all. I’m grateful for all your hard work on Aleida’s behalf. I do know someone who may be able to find her in the duelism system, and when that happens, I’ll be sure to tell her about you.”

  Tala smiled down at the quilted squares on her bedspread. “Thank you.”

  After getting her assurance that she’d pass his greetings to Doc Theo, Bayan said good night and let her close the portal. He headed downstairs to his room, ignoring Calder’s querying look, and the annoyed one that followed it. Vanishing from his room four nights in a row without explanation hadn’t been in his plan, but since he hadn’t told Calder the truth about his first conversation with Tala, he’d kept all the following visits to himself, too. Now Calder had another reason to be angry with him, on top of the more serious issue of whether Treinfhir was friend or enemy.

  Ignoring Calder and all the issues between them, Bayan sat at his desk and penned a letter to his sponsor. Maybe a bag of Philo’s taffies would soften Calder’s ill will.

  A Cursed Hex

  Taban jogged along the trails webbing the cliff tops around the campus. Part of him wished it were night, and that his presence broke the headmaster’s curfew. He was in that sort of mood. When he’d been assigned to his hex, two long years ago, he’d shared a room with two of his hexmates. Braam and Cormaac were gone, though. He was the only one left. He had spent many nights wondering whether it wouldn’t be better for him to top out sooner rather than later, just to escape the ever-present memories of his lost friends and what their absence meant for his future.

  He paused on a windy outcrop and let the stiff wind dry the sweat on his skin and clothes. A darker alternative briefly loomed below, but he dismissed it with a snort. Dunfarroghans were a pragmatic people. It was practically against his nature to admit he had no other options, that death was his best hope for peace.

  Taban knew he was ready for his Avatar test. He’d been ready for over a season, but tradition demanded that an entire hex take their tests at the same time, or topped out one at a time until only those who remained could pass the exam. He’d been patient with them, but Aleida’s surprise top-out worried him. Sure, she’d never manifested that sixth avatar, and he had, but she’d had hers longer than he had. What if he couldn’t control them during his test?

  He shook his head, dispersing visions of humiliation and failure. He didn’t need to dwell on possible futures with his dwindling hexmates. He needed a new, more powerful hex. He’d even picked one and hinted at a merge, but he couldn’t bring himself to beg. He couldn’t let them know how desperately he wanted to channel and wield true power, to feel his magic legitimize his entire existence. To let his newfound strength forgive his father’s abuse and the myriad fears it had spawned in his soul. Taban wanted nothing more than to be someone else. Someone better. Someone with a different past—one that didn’t produce so many kinds of scars.

  In truth, his desire frightened him, but he couldn’t let Bayan’s hex know that Taban Solahan was afraid of anything, so he waited for them to make a formal offer. With a sigh, Taban turned from the expansive view of the valley and jogged in the direction of campus. Mudfooted hexlings, dragging the matter out. Why won’t they admit the match is good? Taban already knew that the instructors would approve the merge. Still, he had to wait for Bayan, and in the meantime, his own hex was falling to pieces.

  He jogged for some while, lost in his circular thoughts. A crackling noise drew his attention to a nearby slope. Taban stopped and listened, but he couldn’t pinpoint the sound. It seemed to come from everywhere at once.

  Before he could summon his Earth avatar, Ducat, to poke around, several enormous stone claws sprang from the sheer slope and extended toward him. Their sharp tips shone in the fading light.

  Uttering a brief curse, Taban began spinning out a defensive Earth spell. As fast as he was, he wasn’t sure he could perform both invocations and the spell itself in time. He couldn’t even back away without breaking his sacred motion patterns.

  Just before the claws rent his flesh, a monstrous crystalline shape burst up near his feet in a silver fog, then shattered the stone claws into obsidian chips that clattered down in a stone rain. With terrified relief, Taban recognized the crackling crystalline thing as Eward’s Earth avatar, Snap. He glanced down the trail and saw Eward, pale as milk, holding his arms in the Earthcasting cross shape. Snap’s crystal appendages crackled and waved menacingly at the hillside, as if daring it to try again, but nothing else happened.

  Taban backed toward Eward. He kept an eye on the ground in case the claws returned.

  Eward jogged over to him. “What just happened?”

  Taban swallowed and met his eyes. “You’re asking me, hexling? I’d say you just saved my hide from some holes it didn’t need. Other than that, I’ve no bloody idea.”

  Eward still held his arms in a cross. “Let’s get back to campus. Snap can come too.”

  Not willing to let someone from the class behind him take responsibility for his safety, Taban summoned Sem, who towered over them and Snap. “In case we need to get up off the ground.”

  Eward nodded. “So. Claws.”

  “Aye.” Taban dared not look at Eward, who kept his eyes forward too. The implication was obvious. Whoever attacked Cormaac had just targeted Taban. The why of it, though… I canna decide whether it’s because we’re hexmates, or if it was random. What have Cormaac and I done to warrant death and dismemberment? I mean, besides our pranks and the like. No one would react this way to one of our black market trades… would they?

  Eward kept glancing behind them and sent Snap ahead around corners several times. Was he a Nervous Nunaa, or did he know something Taban didn’t? It wasn’t in Taban’s nature to reveal his own ignorance, so he didn’t inquire.

  They reached campus without further incident and let their avatars fade as they passed through the first tunnel. “I need to tell Bayan about this,” Eward said. “I’ll see you later. And watch out for yourself.”

  “Aye, I will. But why Bayan?”

  Eward fumbled for a reply, finally saying, “You’re probably going to join our hex soon. He’d want to know.”

  As Eward jogged away, Taban squinted after him. The hexling had saved his life, but now he’d given him an extra present: it seemed that Bayan knew more than Taban about what was going on around campus. That made Bayan Taban’s new best friend.

  ~~~

  Bayan wasn’t surprised when Taban sat with him and his hexmates at breakfast. He ate with them half the time already, as part of his pitch for a formal invitation to join them. Bayan was surprised, however, when Kendesi joined them. Bayan’s first thought was that news of Kiwani’s blood type must not have gotten around yet. He looked closer and saw that Kendesi’s eyes were puffy from crying.

&
nbsp; She stared at her porridge and honeycomb breakfast. “Taban, Breckan’s gone.”

  Taban’s face registered momentary fear, which he covered with a pained look. “What’s happened now?”

  Kendesi slid closer and lowered her voice. Her eyes were dark pools of trauma. “I don’t know. She was gone when I woke up. I told Instructor Aalthoven when I came in just now. He said he’ll begin a search.”

  Taban nodded. Bayan didn’t know what to say, but his silence attracted Taban’s attention.

  “Bayan, if you want me in your hex, take me now. Kendesi, you’d best find a new hex too. This one is cursed.” Kendesi didn’t respond. She just stared at the table top with her slim dark brows drawn together.

  Bayan protested, “It’s not cursed.” But inside, he wondered what the odds were of one hex suffering so much ill luck at once. For certain, the failed attack on Taban had been no coincidence. Did the troubles afflicting Taban’s hex have anything to do with Kiwani’s disappearance? He couldn’t see how. Yet, Bayan had once believed there was no connection between a thief’s ring from Marghebellen and an assassin on campus, and he had been wrong.

  Bayan couldn’t endanger the secrecy of his hex’s Savantism training by bringing in a newcomer, not until he could come up with a way to finish training. He hated to delay, for everyone’s sake, especially Taban’s, but he couldn’t afford the risk of having his entire hex potioneered for forcing Savantism on themselves.

  Taban still waited for an answer. Bayan couldn’t look at him. “Soon, Taban. I don’t want to rush things just because of a bad series of events—”

  “As you like, hexling,” Taban clipped. “I’m not going anywhere. Not voluntarily, anyway.”

  The morning progressed. Flame avatar training helped Bayan release some inner tension, and by the time Water Arena training came, just before lunch, he felt more himself. Then Instructor Staasen pulled Taban and Kendesi aside. The look on the teacher’s face told Bayan all he needed to know. As Stassen spoke to the two students, Kendesi actually burst into tears. Her magic went wild, and the pebbles around her feet were surrounded by an upwelling of water warm enough to steam in the wintry air. Staasen smoothed it away without a word. Taban held Kendesi for a while, and the instructor excused them from class.

  Bayan stepped close to give his condolences as they headed toward the arena tunnel, though he didn’t know exactly what had happened to Breckan. Taban glanced over, eyes full of hurt and anger, and said simply, “Come to the Chantery after class.”

  Bayan could barely focus enough to cast any spells for the rest of class. He feared Taban’s words meant that Breckan would be potioneered too. When he took his leave from his hexmates, who headed to lunch without him, and deviated through another tunnel to the Chantery, he discovered that Breckan wasn’t there. Yet.

  Taban paced the floor outside Diantha’s office. “They’re bringing her back this afternoon. This is the last place she needs to be! This is where all the trouble’s happening. I don’t blame her for leaving. Someone from this hex ought to survive it, at least.”

  “You can’t call what happened to Breckan surviving, Taban,” muttered Kendesi. She huddled in a chair and leaned her temple against the wall. Her eyes were dull, the dusky skin beneath them puffy again. “She probably won’t even notice when they potioneer her.”

  “What do you mean?” Bayan asked. “Tell me.”

  Taban looked away. Kendesi explained in a monotone. “Farmers found her cowering in a turnip cart in the first village down the road. She couldn’t speak proper Waarden. She was drooling and moaning like a terrified animal. Instructor Staasen said the chanter who examined her in the village feared she’d had a complete breakdown, probably from all the other things that have happened to us recently.”

  “A breakdown? Breckan? The same girl who could control two avatars at the same time?” Bayan shook his head. “She’s the last person I’d expect to crack under the strain.”

  Taban shot him a keen look, but Kendesi kept staring at a spot on the floor. Bayan gave Taban a worried frown as he tipped his head toward the Shawnash girl. Taban merely shook his head with a defeated air and turned away.

  Bayan coaxed them both to come to lunch. He promised himself he’d take a plate up to Treinfhir afterward, but he nearly forgot in the commotion that occurred at the table. Calder decided, for some reason incomprehensible to Bayan, to embrace the idea that Breckan had truly broken down, and pushed the issue so far that Taban flung his potato mash at him from across the table.

  Calder grabbed his cup of mango juice. “She wouldn’t’ve cracked if she weren’t weak, and you know it!”

  “You little arserag! Who do you think you are, taking advantage of my hex like this?” Taban put a knee onto the table and reached across for him. “I trusted you!”

  “Better me than her,” Calder shouted back.

  Kiwani, as incensed as Bayan had ever seen her, shoved Calder back from the table and into the aisle. “Stop it, both of you!”

  Taban clambered over the table, and Kiwani struggled to hold the pair of them apart. The air whipped with magic straining at the threshold of control. It yanked at Bayan’s crown tail, melted Kendesi’s spoon, and sprouted leaves from the table.

  Wide-eyed, Bayan gestured to Eward and Tarin. Together, they managed to help Kiwani separate the fighting pair, but their meal had been scattered, and the whole dining hall stared at them.

  “What is wrong with you?” Bayan hissed to Calder.

  “With me? Well, let’s see. You’re a bloody idiot, and Kiwani’s about to get torn to—”

  Bayan gave Calder a violent shake. “Was it you?”

  Fear flashed across Calder’s face. “Was what me?”

  “Did you tell?”

  “I dinna tell anyone anything. Now get off me.”

  Brimming with suspicion and disgust, Bayan gave Calder a shove toward the door. “Go take a walk.”

  Calder left, shrugging off Bayan’s push and strutting for the door as if he hadn’t just been the rudest idiot Bayan had ever seen. Gradually the background buzz resumed. Bayan sat down again, fuming. “I apologize for his behavior, Taban. That was completely out of line. I don’t know what’s gotten into him lately.”

  Tarin flicked her fingers against his arm. “You canna see it? This is the first time you’ve eaten lunch with us in a score of days! You’ve chosen, Bayan, and you dinna choose us. You’ve abandoned our extra training, found another best friend. That’s what’s bothering him. And it’s bothering me too.”

  Bayan felt cold inside as he watched her leave too. Calder wouldn’t spill Kiwani’s secret out of anger and jealousy. He’d never go that far. Would he?

  “If only you could boot his arse and make room for both of us in your hex,” Taban said in a bitter tone. He turned to Kendesi for affirmation, but she just stared at her melted spoon.

  Her words were so quiet Bayan barely heard her. “We’re cursed. We’re all cursed.”

  A Bit of Nocturnal Songwork

  Tala slipped down the darkened corridor, listening hard, eyes alert for the faint glow that would herald the approach of another singer. She sidled down a side hallway and into an unused classroom, feeling her heart pound against her ribs.

  She wasn’t technically breaking any rules by being there. Evenings were her free time, which she usually spent with Doc Theo, though her chanter tutoring had officially ended the day she sang perfectly in class. Still, she couldn’t help feeling a wicked rush of glee for her clandestine actions.

  Her crystals bumped soundlessly against each other in their woolen wraps. They’d ridden down to the class corridors in her belt. She pressed her back against the rounded wall near the classroom door and pulled them free.

  Two crystals. One to represent Doc Theo, the other, herself. Their situations were pretty similar. Singers disliked him for being flawed. Her classmates had shifted from giggling at her hiccups to glowering at her “sudden” success. Graela had even accused her of faking
her hiccups so that her miraculous comeback would be more dramatic. Tala had rarely wanted so much to slap people so hard they fell over.

  She peeked out the doorway. No sign of Doc Theo yet. She’d kept an eye on him the way Bayan asked, but she hadn’t seen him do anything dangerous, and he hadn’t been rambling to himself as Bayan said he used to. She’d been pretty worried when she heard about Doc Theo’s previous symptoms, but in the end, talking to Bayan had been a good decision. It had given her hope that Doc Theo was, in fact, improving.

  Recently, Doc Theo had suggested they explore the Temple in the late evenings. If Tala was to become a powerful Trio Singer, she should know her own campus, he’d explained. Tala had eagerly agreed. Knowing that she could portal anywhere in the empire—and even outside its borders—gave her a heady feeling of power.

  It felt good. It all felt good. Such a rush of power and confidence.

  Doc Theo slipped through the dark doorway. “Tala?”

  “Here.” She stepped away from the wall. “What are we doing tonight?”

  “I have a challenge for you, Mistress of the Crystals.” He swept a dark cloak before him in a courtly fashion.

  Tala cooed with excitement. “What is it?”

  “I have heard that there are such things as wardsongs. You know what they are?”

  Tala had just learned about wardsongs days ago by opening a tiny portal into a corner of a duet level classroom and listening to the entire lesson when she was supposed to be writing an essay on Tuathi scale usage. “Yes. Singers can lock an area away from everyone, even from portals, by using the wardsong and keying it to a specific note or melody. If no one knows the keynote, no one else can enter. The wardsong is advanced solo songwork, but I already know it.”